


Practice Makes Perfect

by jkateel



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2018-12-24 14:24:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12014649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jkateel/pseuds/jkateel
Summary: Nora is a survivor, but that doesn't come without costs.Vignettes of my female sole survivor.





	1. Chapter 1

Nora, for her part, tried to follow her own advice. _One day at a time_. It would be too easy to fall into despair; too easy to let the full weight of what happened to her overwhelm her. Finding Shaun kept her focused; kept everything at bay.

Even she had a breaking point though. She hadn’t expected it to be baked bloatfly meat, but here she was.

“What? Not hungry?” MacCready asked, chewing through the blackened chunk of a gigantic, maggot-spewing, bug that smelled like burnt garbage. Nora’s stomach lurched watching him. “‘Tis good.”

Nora swallowed past bile and vomit and tried not to _remember_.

_The bomb going off. The shockwave nearly throwing them off the platform. The world ending right before her eyes._

That a cooked dead bug, of all things, would bring that all back was strange, but maybe she just couldn’t escape the sheer _wrongness_ of it. That this wasn’t her old life, this wasn’t normal food, that she was in the middle of a dead wasteland and oh _God, she had lost everything—_

Her stomach lurched again, and Nora couldn’t hold it back anymore. “Excuse me,” she told MacCready, setting her plate down before leaving him at the campfire.

That this was her first time vomiting since entering the wasteland was probably a small miracle. It helped, somewhat, though, and after wiping away spit, mucus and tears, she found that eternal calm of hers returning.

Shaun. She just needed to find Shaun, she reminded herself.

Nora sucked in a breath, before returning to the campfire. MacCready only glanced at her when she came back, but wisely, said nothing. He did look impressed when Nora picked her plate back up and sank her teeth into the meat.

 _Shaun,_ she thought to herself as she chewed without tasting. _I h_ _ave to find Shaun._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt: _All books were important, but this one, in particular, was special._

All books were important, but this one, in particular, was special.

It had survived the apocalypse, after all.

Nora picked up the _You’re Special!_ book from where it lay under the dresser, its cover worn and colors faded after so many years exposed to the elements. The spine had loosened, and several pages were tattered and torn. The pictures still told the story of a baby who wanted to grow up big and strong. It was remarkable it was still intact, all things given… But it was a sharp contrast to the thick page she remembered like it was only yesterday.

(And it had been yesterday. Two hundred plus years ago, but still _yesterday_.)

Nora put the book back on top of the dresser, letting out a sound she didn’t know she was holding onto. Not quite a sigh; not quite a sob. She looked at the blue crib, bars missing from its side; the faded ABC blocks on the floor. The rug on the floor was tattered, and the paint on the walls faded to a dirty white. The pile of leaves scattered all around the floor did little hide the ruined tiles underneath. All the work she had done to build this room into a place that Shaun could have called his own was all gone.

All of it destroyed, just like her life, just like her family.

Why was she so special?


	3. Chapter 3

She doesn’t mean to say it. It just comes out of her mouth, unbidden.  _Your people deserved better._

X6 doesn’t do anything as human as snort, but there’s a tension in his shoulders that says he’s this close to doing so. “With all due respect, ma’am,” he says, a hint of emotion in that otherwise cool tone; disgust for her choice of words. “Synths are not ‘people.’”

Nora sighs. Being near the ruins of the Institute is probably not the best place to have this conversation. Except it’s a conversation that they need to have, since X6 still follows her dutifully like he has since Father assigned him to her. He hates her for what she did, yet he still follows, and Nora doesn’t point that out to him.

Let him follow. Let him process. And maybe one day he’ll see the truth. He deserved better too.


	4. Chapter 4

There are times when she sees them both in Shaun: Nate’s smile and mannerisms, the way he tilts his head or always remains calm, no matter the situation. Nora doesn’t see much of herself in her son, though his way with words might be her gift to him. It had made her a good lawyer. It seemed to have made him Director.

The rest though is all Institute. Or that’s what Nora tells herself anyway. Easier to deal with it that way.

How else does she process the fact that her son released her from the Vault; left her out in the world practically defenseless, just to see what she did. The way he casually orders the death of her friends at the Railroad, and the sheer delight he takes in planning the Brotherhood’s destruction and downfall.

Nate, soldier that he was, never took delight in taking lives and doing his duty. He was always kind and compassionate to everyone he met. War, though it never changed, just seemed to make him kinder.

And maybe that’s her again, her gift to Shaun. Everyone hated lawyers pre-war, after all.


	5. Chapter 5

In the months after giving birth to Shaun, sleep had become a precious commodity. Nate had been a godsend for that, teaching her how to nap on command. In a power suit, in the trenches, on the ground, it didn’t matter where — if he had the chance, Nate closed his eyes and slept. Nora eventually picked up the habit too, and in the ‘wealth, it had come in handy time and time again.

There was no sleeping in the Institute though.

Though she had been lying in bed for six hours, sleep refused to come. Even though she was bone-tired and emotionally drained, it eluded her. At first, Nora wanted to blame it on the fact that it was so quiet, the silence deafening after nearly a year out in the ‘wealth. There were no bullets firing in the distance; no Brahmin snuffling away as it meandered the streets, looking for grass to chew on. No low buzz of light bulbs or creaks of buildings still standing despite everything; no soft sighs from Dogmeat as he curled up against her back and dozed.

The quiet was even like before her long sleep either, as even then Nora had had sound. There had been Nate’s light snores and the hum of Codsworth as he ran self-diagnostics overnight. There weren’t even the coos or fussing coming from the baby monitor, Shaun waking up ready to be fed and loved and nurtured.

_Shaun._

Nora had to bite back a sound that wanted to escape her, clenching the sheets of the too-clean bed instead. And just like that, all thoughts of sleep faded — now her brain was on a constant loop, reminding her of the dark, ugly truth who slept so peacefully in his quarters only a minute’s walk away.

_Is it really so hard to accept it was not ten, but sixty years?_

Judging by Nora’s sleepless nights, she was going to say yes, it was still hard.  
  


* * *

  
 “Ah. Mother. Did you sleep well?”

The exact opposite in fact. She was so tired, her entire body ached. She didn’t let it show though, only forcing a grin and a lie so good, Deacon would have been proud.

"Like a baby,” she quipped.

“Good. Good,” he said with a nod that was eerily reminiscent of Nate. It made Nora’s grin start to hurt. And just like that, she knew she wasn’t going to be sleeping again anytime soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day I will write something happy for my Nora. She's had some good times in the wastes, dammit.


End file.
